LIAM Stacey has been named as the 21-year-old Swansea University student arrested over allegedly “sick” comments about Bolton Wanderer’s football Fabrice Muamba. (You can read the comments by @LiamStacey9 here). Perhaps as part of the 2003 Extradition Act, the US can send Chet Walken over to the UK to answer for his allegedly racist tweets?

On the left you can see other tweets form that address in which the tweeter apologises and claims his account was hacked – Click to make bigger.

The Mail picks up internet news that Liam Stacey is a biology undergraduate, originally from Pontypridd, South Wales.

He “posted tweets saying the remarks were not his and insisting he was not a racist. He claimed his account had been hacked and he hadn’t had access to his phone at the time the remarks were made.”

The Mail adds:

His arrest is the latest proof that police are prepared to act against so-called internet trolls who put offensive material on social networking sites, often because they get a thrill out of provoking others.

It’s proof of one thing: the police like twitter uses to act as their snitches.

While you may come across a lot of material on the internet that offends you, very little of it is actually illegal. UK laws are written to make sure that people can speak and write, even offensive material, without being prosecuted for their views. Parliament has tried to define laws in a way that balances our freedom of expression with the right to be free from hate crime.

Nonsense, of course. Take a look as Azhar Ahmed, the Yorkshire 19-year-old in court for his Facebook post on dead British soldiers. It was odious. But was it racist? Racism is now defined as something that can cause offence. The Met’s site asks users filling in a form:

If it is a hate crime, please specify the motivation.*

Er… Motivated by hate? And then there’s:

Why do you perceive this to be motivated by hatred rather than a legitimately held veiw which is different to your own?*

Is the answer: because it offends my own beliefs and prejudices? The site also asks the snitcher to revels their own ethnicity. Why? Is it to see which group is the most easily offended to that the police can temper their action for each group? Does being from a certain background affect the investigating copper’s view of the incident? Will each “community” get a copper that best reflects its views?

PS: Did anyone report tweeters for their comment that Emma West should be raped and murdered? And, no, that is not comment in support of that woman and her abhorrent views. It’s a comment that asks if Twitter, Facebook and other social media operates its own rules dictated by a hierarchy? Are these people no to be charged? Is “Let’s hunt him down” a hate crime? What about he “needs his head kicking in”? These two were jailed for using Facebook to organise a riot. The riot never happened. They still went to prison.